Angel enters the Ninth Age, Dwarfs, Empire, Ogres and misc.

The first time I saw Warhammer miniatures as a kid I was amazed, I had seen model airplanes, but the small warriors inside the wonderful Games Workshop boxes was something else and totally captured me. The closest store to me that had them was over an hour away from where I lived and I took a year or two before I got to assemble and paint my first set of miniatures, 8? LotR orcs which came with paints, paintbrushes and instructions that I got as a Christmas present. This was then followed by the first box I chose for myself, Chaos warriors which I assembled with a mix of dual hand-weapons and shields and painted in many different gaudy colors. While me and a friend did buy and paint some more stuff we never really got to the point where we had proper armies and could afford the ridiculously expensive rule book (also complicated and in a non-native language) which means I never started playing the game. Lack of interest in the hobby and the hefty price tags therefore kept me away.

The Warhammer universe was still something I was interested in however and I did get to play some computer games in the setting and now several years later I have started buying more stuff again. But then GW killed Warhammer Fantasy, a massive disappointment when I finally started to be able to actually afford miniatures and paints. Because of this I ended up here in the Ninth Age. My focus is mainly the hobby aspect, assembling, painting and collecting, but maybe I'll try to pick up the game as well eventually.

At this point I have a decent amount of half-assembled or half-painted stuff from when I was younger as well as some stuff I started buying in the last year.

What I'm currently working on:
Ogre character of some sort, Gore Master from Dark-Art-Studios (link) with one of the heads from the GWTyrant box and some green stuff to get a proper neck.

Dwarven Deep Watch (GW) that I am currently painting, sadly realizing that the minimum unit size for them is 15, maybe I should make a unit filler since buying more of the same miniatures Isn't something that I feel like doing since they seems like one of GWs most overpriced boxes.

Also started assembling some Ogre tusker cavalry, but just noticed that the current rules don't allow them to use guns so should probably save those if I want to make my own mercenaries or add some shooty to a Khan.

Looks like you're off to a good start. If you want more heavily armoured dwarves, but not in a hurry, you might be able to wait until Oathmark releases their next dwarf kit. It's going to be heavily armoured dwarves with a choice between two-handed weapons and hand weapon + shield. I don't know when exactly it will be out, but their current plan is current release (human soldiers), then goblin wolf-riders, then dwarves... If they're anywhere near their usual prises, it will be 30 dwarves for the price of 10 gee-dub dwarves.

Don't hoard the fluff. The fluff wants to be free!

A local blog of sorts for what I'm modelling, converting and painting that's related to 9th age can be found here

Looks like you're off to a good start. If you want more heavily armoured dwarves, but not in a hurry, you might be able to wait until Oathmark releases their next dwarf kit. It's going to be heavily armoured dwarves with a choice between two-handed weapons and hand weapon + shield. I don't know when exactly it will be out, but their current plan is current release (human soldiers), then goblin wolf-riders, then dwarves... If they're anywhere near their usual prises, it will be 30 dwarves for the price of 10 gee-dub dwarves.

Thanks for the tip. Looked at the Oathmark stuff and they seems to be in quite a different style so I'm not sure they would fit in very well with the dwarfs I have from GW and MOM. I Don't mind GW prices in most cases, but the Ironbreakers were disappointing when they are more expensive than the warriors and yet the casted pattern on the armor is so shallow that it got covered by the primer spray. The images of them on the GW website must either have extremely thin coats of paint or have been made with a mold in a better condition than what was used for the box I got. When I pay the premium price of GW instead of a smaller manufacturer I'm expecting a higher quality.

Looks like you're off to a good start. If you want more heavily armoured dwarves, but not in a hurry, you might be able to wait until Oathmark releases their next dwarf kit. It's going to be heavily armoured dwarves with a choice between two-handed weapons and hand weapon + shield. I don't know when exactly it will be out, but their current plan is current release (human soldiers), then goblin wolf-riders, then dwarves... If they're anywhere near their usual prises, it will be 30 dwarves for the price of 10 gee-dub dwarves.

Thanks for the tip. Looked at the Oathmark stuff and they seems to be in quite a different style so I'm not sure they would fit in very well with the dwarfs I have from GW and MOM. I Don't mind GW prices in most cases, but the Ironbreakers were disappointing when they are more expensive than the warriors and yet the casted pattern on the armor is so shallow that it got covered by the primer spray. The images of them on the GW website must either have extremely thin coats of paint or have been made with a mold in a better condition than what was used for the box I got. When I pay the premium price of GW instead of a smaller manufacturer I'm expecting a higher quality.

I know what you mean about the dwarves- hard to get pop factor. especially when dwarves dont lend themselves to bright colours which give better contrasts. Have you tried a few washes? they really help darken the recesses.

Welcome! Recognize your story of seeing warhammer during childhood. Love playing and painting dwarfs myself. Some advices: brownish washes for all non metallic parts are your friend. For metal use nuln oil for silver and more brown reddish wash for gold or bronze. After applying wash paint some of the parts again for some good pop.

More ogres have been assembled and are waiting for priming and/or painting.Khan and Shaman with lots of lovely details to paint.Tusker cavalry has been fully assembled (not gonna glue riders to tuskers until after I paint them though.)
Built some more tribesmen (tribeogres?, I think I prefer the old "bulls") and bruisers which will add to the ranks of tribesmen and bruisers I painted many years ago. Grabbed a nice banner lookout from the mammoth kit to the clansmen so they know if anything nasty is heading their way. Still have the rest of the mammoth parts left on the sprue which will be assembled sometime in the future.

Finished painting the Dwarfs, probably the best looking unit I have painted. Still much to improve but I am happy with the result. Tried to write some runes into the book of grudges, writing "drep jotun" which would translate into something like "slay giant". Unfortunately neither handwriting or freehand painting is one of my strengths and it looks quite messy, still fun though. Thought it could mean that they have a grudge against some giant or perhaps against my ogres. Should probably plan ahead more with bases in the future, very hard to do anything with them when they are covered by dwarf armor and feet.

All the ogres clansmen, bruisers and tusker riders have been primed and I have started with painting skin base coats.

those dwarves look great- did you give their beards a wash? can i suggest a pale yellow dry brush over the top?

I did do some final highlights on the beards after using a wash, ended up being quite subtle. Maybe I should have used a lighter color instead of the more intense yellow that I used. Also used a new can of varnish, it may have dulled the colors a bit.

For freehands you need to build them up. You start with a dark grey, very thin. In 2 to 3 layers you build up the shape of the runes. This is the background to make them stand out more and a color that blends the runes into the banner as well. Then 2-3 thin layers of red to build up a strong color, leave just a bit of grey at the edges. To finish them off an orange or yellow to highlight some edges on the runes or the core if you go for glowing runes (needs a final highlight in white). So basically more layers and colors.
It should look a bit like the sculpted rune, darker edges make it stand out more.

Paint at your comfort level and finish miniatures, that is the best way to do it. Every now and then set yourself a challenge. Practice is key to success. You can always come back and touch things up.

Dug up some old mounted sirens I bought assembled of the local variant of ebay a couple of years ago and continued to paint those.
Getting quite far along with base coating all the ogres that I have assembled. (22 in total!)
Started cutting apart AoW seeker sprues and trimming away the mould lines, they are gonna be great to assemble since the possibilities for different poses seems very large.

Like everyone else I also commit the sin of buying to much stuff!
Ordered my first Reaper miniatures, currently sitting in customs here in Sweden. While the miniatures are nice, and cheap the shipping plus flat fee that customs added makes me doubt if I will order from them again, feels like it is only worth it for a very large order.
Since AoW had a 40% sale on everything and the seekers box seems great I couldn't resist ordering some more stuff from them either, got more dwarfs and an EoS priest.
Also bought a new set of cutters, plastic glue and some more plants for basing.

I did not know I could even do so, did not even know that changing the currency changed the website (does this change where they ship from?) since I'm not using any of the currencies they show anyways and the dollar is the one I'm most used to converting.

Ordering from European retailers is possible of course but none of the ones I have used before carry more than a handfull of Reaper stuff if any at all. I probably should have looked it up more carefully before ordering.

I did not know I could even do so, did not even know that changing the currency changed the website (does this change where they ship from?) since I'm not using any of the currencies they show anyways and the dollar is the one I'm most used to converting.
Ordering from European retailers is possible of course but none of the ones I have used before carry more than a handfull of Reaper stuff if any at all. I probably should have looked it up more carefully before ordering.

The ogres are coming along nicely, all base coats done, all skin done, all red cloth done, got some rust going. Metal still needs more weathering and washes and I need to layer all the brown stuff and highlight lots of cloth stuff. Beards needs paint and of course some small stuff and details, especially on the characters. I am quite happy with the results, although I do wish I had the skill, time and patience to blend the skintones together properly.

The big question mark right now is the eyes, I'm not sure how I should paint them, not painting them at all makes the faces a bit dull but I don't want crazy eyes that ruin the look of the model. Anyone got tips for ogre eyes?

Also started preparing 10 MOM dwarf rangers for assembly. Cool looks and poses and nice details, but a lot of flash and bubbles in the resin. A few of the bodies have large holes in the sides! I have some other MOM stuff and while I haven't looked at it super close yet it does look better than the rangers.

I'd Say practice makes perfect.
I know a lot of people does as Little Joe says, I however would rather paint it white and then do a stroke down with black in the middle of each eye.
The good thing about ogres are that they are big, and therefore easy to practice on.

Seems like you've got all the other things covered in your previous post, Keep at it!
That's one of the nice things about this hobby, to learn and improve upon your skills.